Crafty Individuals 'Simply Square' Challenge!!

So here is my second attempt, at my first attempt, of entering a blog competition!! I thought long and hard about the simply square challenge, and decided to alter a square box that had originally had a gorgeous silver ring in it, given to me on mother’s day by my lovely daughter. If I am honest I usually throw the boxes into a bedroom draw and they stay there for eternity (I do wear the jewellery though), so by altering it, perhaps it will stay on show somewhere.

Here is the box before I made a start on it. 

I wanted to try and keep it vintage looking, and pretty so I hope I have achieved that.It was all plain and just ready to be crafted into something fab. Oooooo and I should of said, I thought I would stick to the mother / daughter theme too as the gift came from my daughter whom I am very proud of xx

I started by painting it all over, both inside and out, with white gesso and then rubbed it with various distress inks to give it some colour. I then rubbed the edges with vintage photo distress ink to try to make it look, well, distressed!! For the top of the box I used a Crafty Individual image from one of their printed people and places books. I sanded it down just to take some of the light shine of it. I framed this with one of the Crafty Individuals die cut frames. I stamped it with the CI-116 stamp to make it look crackled. I then coloured it with distress inks and triple embossed with clear powder to give it a slight gloss.

I added some flowers, and a couple of tiny punched out butterflies with the smallest pearls for the bodies and of course a word from the CI-156 plate (with added glossy accents to the top.) I then put some lace around the edges, distressed and aged that with vintage photo distress ink and that was it finished.

I think I might make a mini accordion book to fit inside it, but that’s for another day!!

Sharon xx